MeaganS
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Posts posted by MeaganS
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I have both near me. I'm looking at different extracurricular activity options for my girls as they get older, and both of these came up. Do you have personal experience with either? My girls aren't particularly physically blessed (normal play but suck at sports) if that makes a difference. Would you recommend it for stem-inclined kids who are looking to put in some work but also want to have some fun? Or just have any general feedback on either? I was looking through the archives and most of what I saw was from 8 years or more ago.
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We've been tracking and it's our first year. We're at 525. I do count being in a tent, so camping helps a lot with the numbers. My rules are at least 2 kids have to be outside for me to count it since I don't want to try to track each member of the family and that simplifies it for me. It's been good. There was a learning curve as they learned how to be outside, but they seem to have it figured out now. Gardening and the pool help tons too.
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Mine is obsessed with the Keeper of the Lost City series. She and her whole group of friends are devouring it.
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Sure.
A- 81 Chapters
B- 76 Chapters
C- 63 Chapters
D- 69 ChaptersEach chapter is 3-6 pages long. We do a chapter a day easily. My kids read a chapter a day and then outline or summarize them as both a history and writing assignment. My 10 and 11yo use the classic editions and my 13yo uses the concise. Each kid takes about a half hour total, and that's including the writing portion.
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4 hours ago, Slache said:
Does this mean you have the concise edition? If so can you share the table of contents?
I have both sets (I'm a junkie), would you like me to share it?
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I was looking at this as a nice break from more academic writing for my older two kids. My kids have also never done a more traditional class so it might be a good experience there. I'm a little concerned about content though. Looking at their website, I wouldn't go near Compass's history resources. We did use Word Up and my kids liked it well-enough. We are Christian and don't mind Christian content but we are definitely more on the progressive side when it comes to educational resources. So I guess my question is, how political does the poetry class go?
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I used OPGTR for all 4 of my kids and it worked wonderfully. However, I think a separate student book is a great option, especially at the beginning. It was a bit cumbersome to share the big heavy book and there's a lot of text on the pages. For beginners, I used to write out or type up what they were supposed to practice with anyways. I would have welcomed a separate student book.
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My 5th grader is my 3rd daughter. Mostly it is doing the next thing. We school year round so she'll finish and start various levels throughout the year.
Math: Beast Academy
Spelling: AAS
Writing: Outlining/narration DIY
Grammar: Growing With Grammar
Literature: DIY reading list
Geography: Draw the World
History: Story of US, Story of the World audio, and DIY informal history
Science: completely informal. Lots of books, kits, stem enrichment classes, etc.
Piano: Hoffman Academy-
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Thanks! I got the email this morning too. It seems like maybe I wasn't the only one asking. Also, I'm glad to hear the shirts are cute this year!
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Did you get your packets in the mail with the tshirt and little stuff yet? We didn't get ours and I don't know whether that's normal or I should talk to them. Last year we got it several weeks before the test.
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This upcoming school year I'll have my very last 1st grader! DD6 has been doing a lot of formal school a bit earlier than her sisters did just because her personality is very driven and because the rest of us are doing school, so she thinks why shouldn't she? It's actually a lot but she thrives with it.
Math: She's doing BA 2A right now. She'll finish it soon and will probably start 2C by the time the new school year starts for us. I do plan on having her go back and finish the level 1 books as they come out. She'll also keep working on math facts fluency with Time4MathFacts.Writing: Right now she does primarily copywork and informal narration. I haven't found a writing program I love for this age yet, so I guess that's pending.
Spelling: She'll actually finish AAS 2 this week, so my guess is she'll spend most of next school year in level 3.
Grammar: I haven't been doing grammar with her yet, but she'll almost certainly start Beowulf Grammar next year. She'll love it too.
Typing: She does TypingClub right now and I don't see that changing.
Geography: This kid got obsessed with Stack the States and now knows more about US geography that most of our family. I'll probably have her start doing the Draw the World/Draw the US this next year. She's been begging to like her sisters. Her fine motor skills are what's held me back. When she tried before, she just couldn't do a very good job and it frustrated her.
History/Science: Like her sisters, we'll unschool these. They are all required to read from various library non-fiction books I check out and we do a lot of deliberate but informal activities with both subjects. We do several Junior Ranger badges a year and visit lots of museums. The girls also love "edutainment" and watch lots of documentaries and play educational games. I also sign them up for homeschool STEM classes at the local Children's Museum. She also has her own 5x8 raised bed garden that she's in charge of planning and taking care of. I think she's planning on peas, cucumbers (for pickles), and carrots, if I remember correctly.
Piano: She's working her way through Hoffman Academy.
Reading: She's a very fluent reader, so I'll probably start assigning literature books for her to read for a half hour a day like her sisters. It's almost not necessary though as she loves to read in her free time. But I'd like to introduce her to more than Dogman, My Little Pony, and other silly graphic novels.
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9 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:
Back when we were still trying to garden traditionally during my crestaceous era of plant cultivation 😁, a couple of ground hogs that lived under the neighbor's shed came over and decimated an absolutely gorgeous crop of broccoli. Nine plants all of them with lovely heads just about ready to cut. I was MANIACALLY angry at those little suckers and sent Mark and his pellet gun on a mission to hunt down and assassinate the buggers. The house was a rental, and at the time, between tenants. It was owned by my dad's good buddy so Mark just walked over, gun in hand, knocked on the door, and told the owner what happened and what he wanted to do. L grabbed his gun and said, "I better join you and make sure we toast the s.o.b.'s or you won't be able to go home tonight!" Next thing you know, I look out the window and these two men are face down on the ground with the barrels trained underneath that shed. I don't know how many rounds they went through, but that ended the raids on our garden. At times I feel kind of mean about it, but we were financially tighter than two coats of paint that summer due to a bunch of medical bills. We had put in a huge garden and I was feeding my growing boys out of it along with three dozen eggs a week I was getting for helping a friend out with her chickens, and some canned venison from the last winter. If they had decimated the strawberries, I think my middle boy would have tried to kill them himself.
I think that is amazing. We bought a trap and trapped a groundhog a day next to our pool for two weeks. We'd drive out to the state forest nearby and dump them. We checked, it was legal (probably, sort of a gray area). Last summer there was a coyote that was wandering around our neighborhood for a few weeks. We could hear it at night and some neighbors caught it on their game camera. The groundhog population took a huge dip after that. We only caught one last year, but that was after it ate our broccoli too. Jerks.
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59 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:
Oh dear. Oh no no no no no.
Aside from the deer (true story, my son's first phrase was "Dose Damn Deer"), my nemesis is the groundhog. Cute as a teddy bear. Untold capacity for evil.
Yup. Groundhogs cost us a total kitchen renovation. They infested under a deck that was against outside of our kitchen. Unbeknownst to us they pushed up so much dirt against the siding that it rot through the walls and caused leaks into the kitchen and made our cabinets moldy. Because it was somewhere we couldn't see, we didn't catch it in time. Fast forward to a year-long total pandemic kitchen renovation. Satan's giant hamsters.
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2 hours ago, Faith-manor said:
I had to go to raised beds here because of gophers. Gophers are very cute. Their personalities are adorable. But, if one wants to actually harvest a garden planted into the ground, one has to murder the gophers because there is NO deterring them, and they will destroy the garden. They are the viking raiders of the vegetable world.
I hear you. We have rabbits and squirrels (although I've never seen the squirrels mess with our garden), but the big garden killers are the herd of deer that live in our neighborhood and the hundreds of groundhogs. The groundhogs are adorable and if they didn't destroy my house and garden, I would enjoy having them around, but alas.
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2 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:
Oh yes, you can spend a boatload of money on gardening.
It helps me that I have acres and acres to grow things on. I don't need raised beds or anything. I also have animals that are a good source of manure and compost. We don't have to water much and when I do, it comes from a well.
What I've learned from farming is that you can only do what you can do. Time and money and energy are finite. Sometimes we just have to pay more for certain things when we don't have the time or the energy to do it.
Gardening is a wonderful hobby! I'd totally enjoy that as a part of the budget, even if it cost more to do it. It's healthy and fun and outside. Totally worth the $ invested, I'd say.
Yup. I think this is the first year we might come close to breaking even. We've got all our raised beds built already. We have a decent compost pile and we can pick up some from a city compost facility for very cheap if we need more. We only needed to buy a few new types of seeds and have most of our trellising and a fence. We pay for watering as a separate "irrigation" bill that is much more reasonable than regular city water (it's what we use for our pool too). But DH loves it and finds satisfaction in it. Last year he even installed lighting so he could work later in the evenings when he got off work. And the experiences our kids are having planning and taking responsibility for their own gardens has been very good for them.
Its like our chickens. There's no way they pay for themselves in eggs. Their predator-proof pretty coop alone cost more than a decade of eggs. But we like having them and like knowing where the eggs come from and we like their pretty coop on our property so we're willing to do it. We just aren't telling ourselves it is to save money, because in our case, it's not. Both gardening and chickens can be done cheaper than we do them, but we're comfortable with our level and both have enhanced our lives. 🙂-
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Just now, fairfarmhand said:
Yeah, I don't grow nearly enough for what we'd need either. I don't enjoy canning nearly as much as I like eating things fresh and working outside. But for us, even just growing enough to eat fresh veggies and put a bit in the freezer does make a decent dent in our grocery bills. In summer, it's not unusual for us to eat almost entirely from the garden for dinner several nights a week.
I actually really enjoy canning. I wish gardening put a dent in our grocery bill but it actually costs us more to garden. DH loves to experiment and we don't do it all as cheaply as we could. I consider our garden budget to be more of a dh "hobby" budget than anything. Well, that and the girls learning experiences with their own gardens.
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DH is the big gardener here, but I act as a sounding board/support. It is mostly for fun as we don't grow nearly enough for our needs. Each of the girls has their own raised bed that they are in charge of as well. This will be our third year with a garden.
DH's gardens:
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Bush beans
Potatoes
Jalepenos
Other peppers
Lettuce
Garlic
Onions
Basil
Zucchini
Brussels Sprouts
Peas
Kids:
Corn
Soybeans (for edamame)
Carrots
Cucumbers
Watermelon
Flowers
Peppers
We planted the garlic already in the fall. DH has already started the onions indoors but that's it so far. We are very much in planning mode and the Baker's Creek catalog (among others) is always out. We also spent every nice day for the last month working on getting the garden ready. From adding compost everywhere to general clean-up of dead plants from last year we hadn't gotten around to yet.-
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Dd13 is having her open heart surgery at the end of February at Mayo Clinic. As a family, we decided to quarantine as much as possible before to avoid covid for her. Starting on Monday, we're not doing church, therapy, friends, or anything. We're glad the Olympics are starting as it gives us something exciting to look forward to. I will minimally go grocery shopping and dh will continue to work (at a hospital in PPE).
It sucks, but rescheduling her surgery would be a massive problem with work, childcare, and surgeon schedules.
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We've been fairly informal. We listen to SOTW audiobooks in the car. We've been through them several times over the years. My kids have also watched Liberty's Kids all the way through several times and Carmen Sandiego (Also in the car. We apparently do a lot of history in the car). We did a year of CC Timeline focus where we regularly went through the timeline. Daily, for years, my kids have had "15 minute reading" which is essentially them choosing books from a pile of mostly non-fiction library books to read. A lot of history has been read there. We travel a lot and complete several Jr. Rangers a year, so there's a fair amount of history we've included there. They have listened to audiobooks nightly since they were toddlers, and many of them are historical fiction or books written long ago.
This year I have a few of my kids working the The Story of US. I'm using it primarily as a source for writing assignments.
Despite being very informal about it, I feel like my kids have an excellent grasp on Elementary-Middle School level history. They've retained a lot and make a lot of connections. I think they are in a good place to transition to more analytical history as they get older.-
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1 hour ago, kbutton said:
@MeaganS mentioned a nice pail in another thread, but I don't remember which thread, and I think I closed my tab with the link.
We have this one. We used to just have a bowl just like you because of my husband, but it got gross and we had lots of fruit flies in the summer. This one, combined with compostable bag liners makes it pretty easy and stench/fly free.
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And now, despite getting the entire set of 10 for a dollar each at a book sale, I just ordered the concise edition set. My dd11, who is currently reading them semi-reluctantly, thanks you. 😊
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Combined, that's about what we usually get from grandparents for Christmas, so I've thought about this a lot. We've done science/childrens museum passes. We've built all 4 girls their own raised bed gardens. We put that money towards themepark season passes near us. We plan to build a zipline. We also put that money towards short-term classes for them, like homeschool 4-week STEM classes.
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3 hours ago, kbutton said:
I'm glad I'm not the only one, lol! I have two of those, usually spilling over...
This is first house we've had with a compost pile and we also have a fairly large garden, so dh is adamant we should compost our scraps (despite the city giving trailer-fuls of compost away for free). For a while we just kept them in a regular bowl but that was gross. I'm very happy with the compostable bag-lined bucket with lid we now use. Plus it limits the fruit flies which are a big issue in the summer here. This is the one we have.
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2 hours ago, Annie G said:
Never heard of an egg skelter so had to look it up. Cool! Pretty and functional!
Yup! We have chickens and it helps make sure we eat the eggs in order. We made that mistake before and never again. 😊
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Moving WWYD
in The Chat Board
Posted
We have a very interesting opportunity and I can't decide what to do!
We currently have a large house on 1.5 acres in an older established neighborhood. This neighborhood is in an area of our city that is growing like mad and having tons of money pumped into it. We are literally a mile away from where they are building the new Walmart home office and within walking distance to a huge art museum and childrens museum and park. It is very bike friendly here and our church is a mile away as well. My 11yo has made some great friends who are within biking distance and there are lots of opportunities for extra curriculars. Our house is 50 years old and we have updated some of it, but it still has a ways to go (constant projects, including totally redoing the master/master bath), but it is unique and fits us really well. It has also almost doubled in value since we moved here over 3 years ago and will likely continue to go up as our area continues to grow and become more desirable. We have chickens and a huge garden with room for more. Overall, we love it here with the exception of the project house, and even that isn't that bad.
So why would we leave? My in-laws, who are great and we have a great relationship with, are moving here. They have suggested that if we wanted, they could buy a large plot of beautiful land and we could build houses on it, possibly with other of dh's siblings (although probably only 1 other would choose to do it). The land they are looking at would allow for all of my husband's homesteady inclinations to come to pass. We would be free to have animals, including meat chickens, pigs, and possibly a cow or two. We could have as big a garden as we wanted, and we would be a few acres away from family we like. We could sell our current house and build a dream house with cash or close to it with what our house would likely sell for. That means we would essentially be debt-free. The problem with this is that the land is about 20 minutes outside of town. It is in a much smaller town and while it is growing too, it is pretty basic and rural. Even the culture feels different. For a lot of things, we'd still need to drive to where we live now. Also, our church would be 20 minutes away.
So what would you do? Stay at the location you love and house/yard that is 90% of what you could possibly want? Build your husband's dream (mine too besides location) house and hobby homestead and be mostly debt free?